Big Bridge #10
This may keep you reading till about this time next year.
Ossian
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Westwords Live
"The largest literature festival that west London has ever seen kicks off in March. The Westwords Live Festival, which spans five west London boroughs, including Brent, features more than 100 events."
Ossian
Ossian
It's all happening - here
Westwords Live Festival
"The largest literature festival that west London has ever seen kicks off in March."
"The largest literature festival that west London has ever seen kicks off in March."
Thursday, February 24, 2005
The seven non-deadly sins
1. Waiting till your siblings have eaten their sweets before starting yours.
2. Buying the same car as next door.
3. Falling asleep and missing your stop on public transport.
4. Pillow fighting.
5. Imagining oneself witty.
6. Using ylang ylang bath oil.
7. Forgetting to worry.
Zoz
2. Buying the same car as next door.
3. Falling asleep and missing your stop on public transport.
4. Pillow fighting.
5. Imagining oneself witty.
6. Using ylang ylang bath oil.
7. Forgetting to worry.
Zoz
Things that culchies love (Zozimus's version)
1. Promotion based on seniority
2. Thumping jackeens out of sight in the back of a police van
3. The sound of their own voices especially with
5. A captive audience
6. Stone cladding
7. Counting their money
8. Creative accounting
9. Hitting animals with sticks
10. Hitting jackeens with sticks
11. Taking themselves very seriously
12. Driving as far to the wrong side the road as possible, as much as possible
13. Pictures of Pope John XXIII and Arkle
14. Mismatching colours
15. Dumplings
16. Commenting on other people's visits to the toilet
17. Long drawn out standing jokes
18. Catchphrases
19. Singing out of tune
20. Being experts about horses
21. Getting up the yard
Zoz
2. Thumping jackeens out of sight in the back of a police van
3. The sound of their own voices especially with
5. A captive audience
6. Stone cladding
7. Counting their money
8. Creative accounting
9. Hitting animals with sticks
10. Hitting jackeens with sticks
11. Taking themselves very seriously
12. Driving as far to the wrong side the road as possible, as much as possible
13. Pictures of Pope John XXIII and Arkle
14. Mismatching colours
15. Dumplings
16. Commenting on other people's visits to the toilet
17. Long drawn out standing jokes
18. Catchphrases
19. Singing out of tune
20. Being experts about horses
21. Getting up the yard
Zoz
Monday, February 21, 2005
Hunter S Thompson takes the Hemingway cure
Guardian Unlimited Books | News
"Thompson is credited with helping to pioneer New Journalism - or, as he dubbed it, 'gonzo journalism' - in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story. Much of his earliest work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. 'Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairytale artist,' Thompson said in 2003. 'You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.'"
Ossian
"Thompson is credited with helping to pioneer New Journalism - or, as he dubbed it, 'gonzo journalism' - in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story. Much of his earliest work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. 'Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairytale artist,' Thompson said in 2003. 'You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.'"
Ossian
Raising children as vegans 'unethical', says professor
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports
"A leading US nutritionist today claimed that vegetarian and vegan parents are damaging their children's health by denying them meat."
The article contains some counter-arguments and further information about the findings.
Zoz
"A leading US nutritionist today claimed that vegetarian and vegan parents are damaging their children's health by denying them meat."
The article contains some counter-arguments and further information about the findings.
Zoz
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Organic rats in rude good health
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports
"Organic food can help you sleep, keep you slim and boost your immune system - if you are a rat."
It's a dilemma. Should we tell Kilroy Silk or not?
"Organic food can help you sleep, keep you slim and boost your immune system - if you are a rat."
It's a dilemma. Should we tell Kilroy Silk or not?
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Kerouac's road trip unrolls to its end in an enigmatic tear
Scotsman.com News
"Fans of Kerouac and beatniks old and new have a chance to see every word, edit and smudge of his original manuscript, unrolled end to end and under glass at the University of Iowa Museum of Art."
Ossian
"Fans of Kerouac and beatniks old and new have a chance to see every word, edit and smudge of his original manuscript, unrolled end to end and under glass at the University of Iowa Museum of Art."
Ossian
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Worst case rugby scrum injury
Fan Hacks Off Testicles
"Geoff Huish was so convinced England would beat the Welsh he told mates: 'If Wales win I'll cut my balls off.'"
As a serious publication, we don't usually cover the stories in the general category 'Bizarre' but this poor guy must've felt really hacked off over his defeatist prediction.
"Geoff Huish was so convinced England would beat the Welsh he told mates: 'If Wales win I'll cut my balls off.'"
As a serious publication, we don't usually cover the stories in the general category 'Bizarre' but this poor guy must've felt really hacked off over his defeatist prediction.
Blair rules out air fuel tax
Guardian Online
Aviation fuel - kerosene - is unique in being tax free. Environmentalists claim the exemption deprives the government of around £7bn a year and breaches its own 'polluter pays' principle.
"I do not think you're going to have any political consensus for saying we're going to slap some huge tax on cheap air travel."
He doesn't give a damn.
Zoz
Aviation fuel - kerosene - is unique in being tax free. Environmentalists claim the exemption deprives the government of around £7bn a year and breaches its own 'polluter pays' principle.
"I do not think you're going to have any political consensus for saying we're going to slap some huge tax on cheap air travel."
He doesn't give a damn.
Zoz
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Free range / organic eggs? Are they flock
The Independent Online Edition
"The vast majority of egg-laying birds (pullets), destined to produce organic eggs, spend up to 18 weeks - nearly the first half of their productive lives - being fed non-organic food in the same indoor conditions as hens destined for other uses. It is only after a transfer process of six weeks, during which the pullets are moved to a laying farm with access to the outdoors and fed an organic diet, that the eggs can be classified as organic."
Farming sucks.
Zoz
"The vast majority of egg-laying birds (pullets), destined to produce organic eggs, spend up to 18 weeks - nearly the first half of their productive lives - being fed non-organic food in the same indoor conditions as hens destined for other uses. It is only after a transfer process of six weeks, during which the pullets are moved to a laying farm with access to the outdoors and fed an organic diet, that the eggs can be classified as organic."
Farming sucks.
Zoz
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Gravitas - the party of Now
Sources close to Feargal Mooney have told the Willesden Herald that he is planning to stand again at the imminent General Election. He has been elected leader of his own party Gravitas - the party of Now. Mooney was encouraged by his excellent showing in the Brent East by-election of 2003, where his write-in results were discounted as spoiled votes, but noted by spread-betting experts. The Herald has agreed to help him formulate his policies, using our combined centuries of experience with being right about just about everything. Some of Gravitas's main planks are likely to be:
- A jubilee amnesty for all personal debt every 50 years, to be backdated to 2000
- Legalise all drugs for sale through pharmacies
- Legalise prostitution in licensed brothels
- An amnesty for all convicts incarcerated for victimless crimes
- Withdrawal from NATO and a policy of neutrality and self-defence only
- Withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy and exclusion of all foreign fishing boats for 200 miles. Strictly managed fishing within that.
- Abolition of the monarchy
- Abolition of the House of Lords and replacement with a Senate similar to the Irish one
- Disestablishment of the Church of England
- Adoption of a modern written constitution
- A bee-sting President whose only powers are to approve laws or resign, forcing an election
- An end to all immigration controls
- No choice of school, use your nearest with a place available
- Medical care only within the NHS, ban private medicine
- Join the Eurozone, no referendum
- Maximum two terms for Prime Ministers
- 50% income tax on all income over £20,000, and zero below that
- Abolition of the Council Tax and replacement with an automatic levy on Income Tax.
- Four free tickets per person per day for use on bus or rail, non-transferable
- Whatever else we think of
We have already made a contribution to the manifesto by talking Feargal out of licensing shoulder-launched ground-to-ground missiles for use against cars with loud sound systems, and out of allowing a plea of Justifiable Homicide in the case of murder of tailgaters.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
I'll tell my Dad and then you'll be sorry
Scotland's Homer comes back into literary fold
"'Now we know not to think of Homer as the inspired bard. Homer was a committee just as much as Ossian was a committee,' she said."
I'm a human being, not a committee. And I didn't spend hundreds of years in Tir na n'Og, not to mention chatting with St Patrick, to be called a Scottish fraud.
Ossian
"'Now we know not to think of Homer as the inspired bard. Homer was a committee just as much as Ossian was a committee,' she said."
I'm a human being, not a committee. And I didn't spend hundreds of years in Tir na n'Og, not to mention chatting with St Patrick, to be called a Scottish fraud.
Ossian
Read all about it
An abridged excerpt from "Gerry Boysey's Human Circus" appears in the Spring edition of readallaboutit, Brent Library Service's free magazine, available from today. It's a taster for an anthology to celebrate ten years of the Willesden writers workshop, which will contain the complete piece. I'm guessing whoever chose the illustration hadn't read the text.
Ossian
Ossian
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